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There are two kinds of buffers related to RTL interconnects: the
output buffer driving the output network for each DPU and the
buffers (a.k.a. repeaters) inserted along a long wire to reduce
its delay. One can also view the latter as a distributed output
buffer. Buffers increase interconnect power consumption
significantly. Studies show that the total switched capacitance of
inserted buffers (repeaters) is about times the total
switched capacitance of the corresponding wire [58] when
buffer insertion is delay-optimized. For output buffers, it has
been shown that their total switched capacitance is also
approximately times that of the corresponding
wire [59] (see Appendix for details). Therefore, we
do not distinguish between these two kinds of buffers and treat
them as an integral part of a wire in the following.
Lin Zhong
2003-10-11